


do the girls back home touch you like i do?

by ivyrobinson



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, Tutor AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22727443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyrobinson/pseuds/ivyrobinson
Summary: modern au. anya is unimpressed with her brother’s handsome Russian tutor
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 79





	do the girls back home touch you like i do?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [piecesofgold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofgold/gifts).



“We don’t need to bring in a tutor to help Alexei with his Russian,” Anastasia complained to her father when Dmitry Sudayev first showed up. Well, not when he first showed up, as that would mean she complained about him in front of him and that was the sort of rude that was unforgivable to her parents and Nana. But the moment she had left the foyer from opening the door to see a teen boy standing there, wearing well worn clothing and a backwards baseball cap (of all things!) looking both beautiful and stupid, and marched into her father’s study. “Any one of us can do it.”

At this, Nicholas Romanov looked up at his youngest daughter, in a mixture of amusement and annoyance. His tone was set when he spoke, however, “And yet, none of you have.”

So it was true that her father had been asking them, mostly Maria and Anastasia as they were both still in high school and Olga and Tatiana were away at college and would have never allowed Alexei’s studies to drop to the level where an outsider would need to come in. Her oldest sisters were annoyingly perfect in that way. 

“I can do it,” she insisted, mentally trying to rearrange her school and social calendar schedule. “What are even his qualifications?”

“He speaks Russian, he reads Cyrillic and he’s shown up to help Alyosha,” her father responded. “That already puts him ahead of my daughters.” Her father looked back at the work she had interrupted. “Nastyona, go be young and have fun. Enjoy the free time this allows you.” 

She had left, but she wasn’t happy about it. Neither was her oldest sister, Olga, who had called her that night to ask her why she couldn’t have been bothered to help her little brother with his studies. 

The second time Dmitry showed up, he wore an outfit similar to the one he had worn before except even more worn out, and the same stupid hat attached to his head. He didn’t even take it off when he walked into the dining room where her brother was set up to do his studies. 

“Privyet, Dmitry!” Her younger brother greeted his tutor happily. 

Her brother was always starved for male attention, complaining he was cursed with nothing but sisters and sisters. He had been close with Olga’s high school boyfriend, but they had broken up during her sister’s senior year and now she was away at Yale in college and so they never saw her current boyfriend. Little Alexei had taken the break up harder than Olga had, being all of 9 at the time it had happened. Tatiana did not date boys, and therefore never brought any home. And Maria never dated a boy for long enough to bring him home to meet the entire family. (She was still required to have them meet their parents, if they had no previous acquaintance with him or his family. As a result, she tended to date mostly within their Russian-American circle so she didn’t have to introduce them to her parents.) And Anastasia...well, she was entirely too picky according to her sisters and classmates. 

“Privyet, Alexei,” Dmitry returned. And she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the way he rolled his r’s when he did so. What a show off. 

“Have you met my favorite sister?” Alexei asked, in English. 

Dmitry’s gaze flickered over to her, dismissively and then replied to Alexei, “Not officially.”

“I call her Anya,” Alexei explained. It was true, he had not been able to pronounce Anastasia when he was younger and had always gotten stuck on the first two syllables. Ann-ya had softened to Anya eventually. “But everyone else calls her Anastasia.” 

Dmitry looked back over at her, assessing her. “Anya,” he tried out instead of her actual name. 

“Do you have trouble with your syllables too?” She asked, then put her hand to her mouth because it was a sort of thing to say that would get her in trouble with her parents and grandmother. 

Instead of being offended, however, Dmitry merely laughed in response. She wondered if he truly was as simple as he appeared. Dimples popped out near his jawline when he laughed and she snapped her gaze away and towards her brother. Who was glaring at her. She supposed she was not currently the favorite sister anymore. 

He pointed towards the next room with the staircase and with a rather good impression of their father for a twelve year old said, “Go to your room.”

She bristled at the tone coming from someone four years younger than her and snapped back, “Say it in Russian!”

Her brother gave a panicked look towards Dmitry who shrugged. Then Dmitry said the only smart thing she had ever heard him say when he told her brother, “I don’t think it counts if I say it for you, bud.”

Anastasia left, but she very purposefully did not go to her room. Later that night, however, her father came to her room and told her she absolutely must apologize to her brother and his tutor. 

Apologizing to Alexei was easy enough, as he was one to forgive easily and he had most likely been over her fit of temper the moment she stormed out of the room. Apologizing to Dmitry would be more difficult and probably more necessary. 

So, the next time he showed up and she opened the door for him and his stupid baseball cap, she swallowed her pride and said, “I’m sorry.”

He arched an eyebrow in response, “In Russian?”

Well, Anastasia supposed she deserved that. She let out an annoyed breath and said, “Mne ochen’ zhal’.”

Dmitry and dimples smiled back at her, “Proyekhali, Anya.”

Anastasia decided to pick her battles. As per the advice all the older members of her family gave to her. 

She decided to make polite small talk, that may or may not also double as an interrogation. “Do you tutor many people?”

“Your brother is the first one,” he said. He was chewing gum. Of course he was. 

“School credit?”

“Community service, actually,” he told her and she found herself back at her father’s study. 

“Papa, he’s a criminal,” she told him. “He’s tutoring Alexei for community service credit.” 

“I’m well aware, Malenkaya,” her father said patiently. 

She narrowed her eyes at him because it was unlike anyone in her family to simply let anyone in and deal with their children. “What does Mama think?”

Her father let out an impatient sigh now, “Your mother is very disappointed that you and Maria couldn’t be bothered to help your brother with his studies but also believes in Christian forgiveness.” He frowned. “And also, Anastasia, with all this time you spend harassing your brother and his tutor I don’t know how you didn’t have time to help him.”

Properly shamed, she left her father’s study and avoided her brother and his tutor for his next few sessions. 

Unfortunately, walking back from her friend Katya’s house, she found him unavoidable as he fell into step beside her. 

She was surprised, as she had just assumed he had driven to their house every session but now that she thought about it she couldn’t remember seeing him coming to or from her house before. 

“Do you walk here every time?”

He glanced over, startled as though he hadn’t expected her to speak to him. She supposed she deserved that. “I walk from the bus stop.” He gestured to his clothing. “I do not live in this neighborhood.”

She just nodded in response. “Was your license suspended?”

Dmitry laughed in response, and she didn’t know why she couldn’t help but be rude around him. “Do you want to know why I’m serving community service?”

“Yes,” she answered, a little too quickly. 

He shrugged. “I got caught stealing food.”

“Oh,” she said. Something made her think it probably wasn’t just as a prank or whatever stupid reasons boys at her school stole from people with. “Where are your parents?”

“My father died a few years ago,” he responded looking straight ahead as they walked. “My mom died a few years after I was born.”

Well, now she felt every inch the spoiled brat she had probably shown herself to be. 

“Who is raising you?” She asked softly. 

“If the state asks,” he leaned over like imparting a secret to her. “My foster father is, but I’m pretty sure I’m raising us both.”

One more question, because Anastasia was nothing but curious. “Why do you always where that stupid hat?”

“You think my hat is stupid?” He teased and pulled off the cap and shook out his hair. Beautiful, thick and rather luxurious brown hair. It seemed unfair. She was hoping he had been hiding a deformity or a bald spot. 

“Ah,” she said, glancing over at him. “I can see why you kept the hat on, you are obviously hideous.”

Dmitry reached over and set the cap (forwards) on her head, pulling the lid down low over her forehead and eyes. 

“So I’m told,” he said in a way that told her he was definitely (truthfully) told the opposite. 

She tugged that hat up slightly so she could see. “Are you trying to tell me I look hideous?”

“Yes, Anya,” he said, glancing over at her. “You are the most hideous creature I’ve ever seen.”

She had no idea why that made her blush. 

The next time she opened the door to let him in for Alexei’s tutoring, he was not wearing his hat. Even though she had handed it back to him once they had reached the door last time. She wanted to have topped back on his head, like he had down to her but she didn’t know how to reach that high without physically climbing up him and she felt that would be awkward. 

She did, however, greet him in Russian (he was very hideous indeed today) and he grinned and replied in kind and they kept it up as he got out the books for Alexei. Alexei came down at some point, taking his seat. He looked between the two of them, groaning when he heard Russian being spoken. 

After a few moments of working on his Cyrillic worksheet as Dmitry and Anya continued to speak, Alexei put down his pen to glare at them. 

Or, rather, her, “You don’t need a Russian tutor.”

“I know,” she told her brother in English. “But if you keep studying you won’t be so annoyed by this.”

Her brother gave her a sickly sweet smile, “Oh, I think I’ll always find you annoying, Anya.”

Dmitry whispered to her, also in English, “Are you sure you’re his favorite sister?”

She leaned back to respond in a whisper, “Yes, you should see the rest of them.”

Alexei threw a pen at her and she shrieked as it almost hit her. Her grandmother came into the room to tell her that she wasn’t behaving like a proper young lady and to go sit with her until she could settle down. 

Dmitry winked at her as she got pulled away to the other room. 

Alexei was still pouting when Anastasia joined him and Maria in the living room later on as they watched television. He merely grunted in a greeting to her.

“What’s his problem?” Maria asked her.

“I can answer myself,” Alexei said grumpily. “And my problem is that Anya has discovered Dmitry is hot and now won’t leave us alone.”

“Ah,” Maria said, unfazed by a Romanov sibling outburst. Then she looked over at Anastasia, who had forgotten to protest her brother’s claim. “I always knew you’d end up with a juvenile delinquent.”

Anastasia crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. Now Maria could deal with two grumpy siblings for the rest of the night. 

“Hey,” Dmitry greeted her as their paths crossed once again outside her house. He, on his way to tutor her brother, and she, on her way to meet some friends at the movies because she had been declared too much of a distraction to her brother during his lessons. ‘I’m not the one she’s distracting,’ Alexei had muttered under his breath. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes,” Anya said. He was standing at the bottom of the porch steps, and she stayed three steps up and enjoyed the fact she was eye level with him for once. “I’ve been banished from my own home by a twelve year old boy.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and even though it wasn’t his fault, he sounded far more sincere than she had back when she originally had to apologize to him. “Can I make it up to you?”

“It’s not your fault,” but also she realized being eye level really meant it was easy for her gaze to flick down to his lips. 

Lips that smiled. “What if I made it up to you outside of your dining room?”

Anastasia gasped, “You mean like the living room? Or even on this here porch?”

“I was going to get wild and suggest the backyard,” he replied. 

“Oh, a bad boy,” she teased. Then she leaned forward and kissed him, because she could. 

“I feel like you’re far more trouble than I could ever be,” Dmitry told her. “Meet me here after tutoring?”

She nodded, and let him pull her in for another kiss. 

That was quickly interrupted by the sound of the door opening and her little brother saying, “Now that you guys have gotten that out of the way, can I please learn some Russian.” 

Anastasia giggled as her and Dmitry pulled away from each other, “At least you’ve gotten him passionate about the language.”

Before he fully pulled away, he did lean in to whisper, “U tebya krasivye glaza.”

“U tyebya acheravatyel'naya ulypka,” she returned, with a smile. 

Alexei groaned and stepped forward and pulled Dmitry towards the door, while shooing his sister away with the other. 

See, her brother was finally understanding Russian enough to be properly annoyed by what they were saying.


End file.
